Our robot works like a dog

smWoef, the University of Pretoria’s new robotic dog, can be as agile as a normal dog, as fearless and as trainable to perform at its owner’s command. No treats are needed.

It can dance. It can sniff. It does a backflip with ease. And it’s a bit of a show-off, whether prancing around an avocado orchard or accompanying the Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Tawana Kupe, when he entertains VIPs.

Meet smWoef, the University’s new robot dog, a 12kg Unitree A1 that stands under half a metre tall.

Professor Wynand Steyn, Head of the Department of Civil Engineering in UP’s Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, was the one who named smWoef. The “sm” stands for “smart” because it is a Smart Alternative Transportation Platform connected to the internet, and “woef” is the Afrikaans spelling for “woof”, the sound a dog makes. Despite the formulation of its name, however, it is pronounced as one syllable – “smwoef”.

smWoef arrived at UP from China last year without its lithium-ion battery pack, which had to be shipped separately because it is hazardous. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the battery was stuck in Hong Kong for months. However, the enterprising researchers at UP’s Engineering 4.0 facility – which focuses on research on smart transport, cities and infrastructure – made a plan.

Andre Broekman, who was in the final year of his PhD in railway engineering, said: “We tethered it to an electrical cable, so it looked like it was on a leash. When we eventually got the batteries and controller it could start walking about and doing its thing. So, it's actually still a puppy undergoing its training.”

Most of its day-to-day workings fall on Jordan Mostert, a civil engineering technologist who, quite by chance, landed at UP for his two-year internship with the Department of Science and Innovation. “When smWoef came, was the one who figured out his applications and exactly how he works. It’s a once-ina-lifetime opportunity for me,” Mostert said. “At the moment it’s a big learning tool for us in terms of programming, data collection, and type of applications it can be used for. Once we have a solid proof of concept we can apply it to different scenarios and get data.”

One of the highlights of these trials was smWoef’s visit to ZZ2’s headquarters in Mooketsi, Limpopo, where it navigated between avocado trees to test its ability to collect data to generate a digital copy of the surroundings.

It had been suggested that smWoef could be used in orchards to count fruit and take air quality measurements. “It’s an ideal candidate for that because it can do so continuously and track changes over time,” Broekman said.

Being able to gauge temperature means it can, for example, monitor greenhouses for optimum growth of seedlings, and test industrial cooling systems.

Being able to smell means it can operate like a sniffer dog and be programmed to analyse and track a smell.

Being able to traverse difficult-to-access terrains, and do so without leaving DNA like humans would, means it can collect data from scenes without contaminating them.

“The sky's the limit. We’re enjoying throwing around ideas and coming up with even more exciting ways that smWoef can change the way we do things,” Broekman said.

A computer on paws

smWoef has quite the pedigree:

Cost: US$15 000 (R250 000)

Weight: 12kg

Drive: Four motors allow it to move at up to 4.4km/h

Distance: It can operate at up to 8m by remote control or be programmed for longer distances

Capacity: It can carry equipment weighing up to 5kg, such as a super-fast laser LiDAR (light detection and ranging) scanner

Wired: It has ports on its back for inputting Internet of Things (IOT) devices such as temperature sensors and an artificial nose